Throngs of Haitians, Africans, Russians, Armenians and Guatemalans are being admitted into the United States via the Mexican border with virtually no vetting for security or health risks, high level Homeland Security officials told Judicial Watch this week. Overwhelmed and understaffed border agents are bombarded daily with an onslaught of immigrants from these countries and have been ordered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to process them as refugees with “credible fear.” Most are camping out in Mexican border towns and going “port shopping” before gaining entry to the U.S., according to federal officials whose identities must be kept anonymous because they fear retaliation. The ports “are unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said Patricia Cramer, a veteran border agent who serves as president of the U.S. Customs employee union in the Tucson, Arizona sector.

One federal agent at the San Luis Port of entry in Arizona described the situation as a “mass crisis, like a third-world country.” A DHS supervisor in the region told Judicial Watch that the agency has issued an order from Washington D.C. to all agents: “No one is allowed to speak to the media.” The veteran DHS official said that to accommodate the influx border agencies have suspended regular business and “people that have actually gone through all the legal and proper ways to get documents are being shoved to the side.” One frustrated DHS official in the border region said she has never seen this type of rampant lawlessness throughout a lengthy career with the government. “The elected government officials claim we are against terrorism yet they are not doing anything to actually prevent terrorists from entering the country,” the DHS supervisor said, adding that the public should show up at ports of entry to see firsthand the problems border agents face every day.

The influx of Haitians and Africans has been making headlines in Mexico for weeks because droves of immigrants are being housed in shelters in Mexican border towns while they await entry into the United States under a secret accord with the Obama administration. The migrants’ journey begins in Brazil under a South American policy that allows the “free transit” of immigrants throughout the continent. Ecuador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama facilitate the process by transferring the concentration of foreigners towards Mexico based on an agreement that Mexico will help them gain entry into the U.S. so they can solicit asylum. Under the plan Mexico gives the immigrants 20-day visas and temporary shelter but the backlog is out of control because the U.S. isn’t processing the migrants fast enough. This week Mexico’s secretary of the interior, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, told the country’s largest newspaper that DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson assured him the U.S. would speed up the process of admitting the refugees to “alleviate the crisis on the southern border.”

U.S. border agents can’t keep up and are working 16-hour shifts to accommodate the order, according to various officials on the frontline. DHS failed to respond to Judicial Watch’s request for an actual number, but here are figures provided to a Mexican newspaper by Mexico’s government this week: “More than 15,000 Haitian and Africans, especially from Congo, have crossed into Mexican territory in the last six months on their way to the United States, but more than 4,300 have been stranded on the border with California.” In a separate Mexican news report published this week the country’s secretary of health, Dr. José Narro Robles, delcared that the Haitians and Africans that remain in Baja California and Chiapas present serious health risks to Mexico.

Judicial Watch’s sources on the border say the overwhelming majority of migrants don’t appear to have been through any hardships. Instead many look in great physical shape, even muscular and fit, well-groomed and a lot of them have large amounts of cash. “They’re showing up with a few hundred dollars if not a few thousand dollars, new electronics, cell phones, tablets, etc.,” said a Border Patrol official in Arizona. Another border agent told Judicial Watch that many of the Haitians and Africans “know the administration is going to let them in and they come with an attitude of entitlement.”

It wouldn’t be the first time the Obama administration abuses the “credible fear” provision in immigration law to benefit its open borders agenda. In fact, last year Judicial Watch obtained government records showing that the administration let hundreds of illegal immigrants stay in the U.S. even though federal authorities knew in advance that an open borders group coached them to falsely claim “credible fear” to get asylum. The operation was part of a scam conducted by an immigrant rights organization called the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NITA), which had coordinated demonstrations along the Southwest border in Texas and Arizona. In mid-2014 the group orchestrated a racket seeking to bring 250 illegal aliens into the U.S. through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California. To assure the migrants were allowed to stay in the U.S., the group had them falsely claim that they had a “credible fear” of returning to their native country. Foreigners can claim asylum under five categories, based on fear of persecution over race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a specific social group.